Chapter 20, Alexis's in Wonderland
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: See all of the Castle I do not own? Rating: M, in places. Time: After my fic, Four of a Kind.
Chapter Twenty: End game?
Hearing that Duke Robert was dead and that everyone knew it, everyone, Castle and his wife and friends and Alexis' Mongol guards, followed Alexis back to the throne room. To their surprise, it was empty.
"We'll go to Duchess Claudia's quarters." Alexis decided and headed down a series of hallways. On the way, the found Captain Denard.
"What happened?" Alexis demanded.
"Too many people knew he had died. Someone talked. We can't worry about that now. We have to decide what to do next."
Shortly they came to what must have been the Duke and Duchess's living room in their quarters. Duchess Claudia was there with several of her ladies in waiting, a half a dozen men that Castle vaguely knew to be her supporters and young Robert.
Alexis bowed to Robert. "Duke Robert. I am at your command." Denard followed her, also pledging his loyalty. The five exchanged glances, then bowed and pledged their loyalty to the new Duke.
The duchess spoke. "Lady Alexis, I don't believe I know the people with you, although the wear my colors. Why did you bring them here?"
"They are newcomers to New Normandie, but they have travelled far and wide and have had much experience. I think they may be useful in deciding what to do next."
"Just what are the other sides doing?" Castle asked. "I'd have thought there'd be fighting in the streets by now."
Alexis gave him a look that he knew he'd seen before from his own Alexis. "Richard, while Duke Robert…"She stopped for a second. "While Duke Robert the Elder was still alive, no one wished to proclaim formal allegiance to one of our opponents or the other. Should that become public, it would be too easy to construe that as being a treasonous desire to get rid of Duke Robert the Elder. But now that the Duke are dead, both Michael and Richard are now openly asking for support. And their would-be supporters are asking what they may expect in return."
Castle had an idea. "What do they want in return?"
"Each and every one of them?" Alexis asked, frowning.
"Just generally. What about the people who support Lord Richard?"
"They're young men, hotheads and most are landless, who want glory and land. They think they'll find it by attacking the locals."
Castle smiled. "Hotheads, you say? Not the kind of people who'd be interested in the nitty gritty of governing."
"Nitti gritty?" Asked Duchess Claudia, clearly confused.
Castle ignored her. "Have those two who were arguing about taxes earlier today go to Lord Richard and ask what his stand on that tax, and taxes in general, are. Find other people to ask him about…agricultural policy, trade, anything and everything. And have them remind him that if he's going to go to war, he's going to need money, which means taxes, food, weapons, armor, horses, all of which he's going to need to take care of if he's the new Duke. He can't just ignore it, and if he lets someone else handle that part, Richard won't be the Duke anymore. The guy with the money and the power will be. Then when Richard has got all that to think about that, suggest that you might be willing to support him and his followers with money, food, weapons and horses if he wants to lead an army inland. With any luck he and his followers will all get killed."
Castle felt a little badly that he might just be starting a war, but he just might be preventing a bigger war.
Duchess Claudia looked at Alexis. "That just might work. Can we get Master Oddo and Master Degrelle to speak to Lord Richard? And some others?"
Alexis nodded." And Master Poulan from the Ducal dockyard. The problems there have been quite vexing. It is something that the new Duke will have to consider and then there's the problem of the dikes." Alexis smiled. "I'm sure I can find some other people with serious problems that only the new Duke can fix." She bowed to Duchess Claudia. "If you will excuse me?"
Alexis gathered up a half a dozen pages and ladies in waiting and told them to bring various people to the Duchess' chambers. As they arrived, they were sent off to talk to the Duchess and Alexis.
Finally, the last of the courtiers and administrators had been sent off to ask Lord Richard for a chance to talk. The Duchess called for food and drink. Castle saw Alexis sitting in a corner eating by herself. He went over to join her.
"Mind if I join you?"
"Why, am I coming apart?" She said with a grin.
"Very funny." Rick said, sitting across from her. "How did you end up here? Not just in this alternate Earth but as the tutor to the Duke."
Alexis eyed him speculatively. "The idiots that kidnapped me thought that because they had modern guns they we invincible. They ran into a band of Native Americans and ended up looking like pin cushions with all the arrows in them. The locals were friendly with the Normans and brought me here. I made up a story about being from the Holy Land and being a great scholar. I told them I had been shipwrecked some way to the south. They decided to test my claims to be a scholar by introducing me to the local Galileo."
"The local Galileo?" Castle asked.
"A man named Schroeder, from what would be Germany, was trying to prove that the Earth and all the planets orbited the Sun as opposed to everything revolving around the Earth. But, he couldn't get his mathematical proofs to work. I quickly saw that they didn't work because he assumed that the Earth's orbit was a perfect circle, whereas in reality the orbit is slightly oval. Once he got that, we worked out the proofs and I was established as a great scholar and teacher. The job as tutor to young Robert was obvious."
"That's my girl." Castle said, before realizing this Alexis was not his girl. She didn't seem to take offence, but he decided he'd better change the subject. "How's things going with Lord Richard? I saw Rosencrantz and Guildenstern coming back. Anything?"
"Lord Richard tossed them out. He was too busy making a speech to his bloodthirsty followers telling them how they were going to conquer the whole continent."
"The whole continent? That's on tall order for…How many Normans?"
Alexis shook her head sadly. "There are a bit over a hundred thousand Normans scattered along the coast of what we'd call North Carolina, a little bit into South Carolina and a lot more in the Chesapeake region. Lord Richard probably has twelve hundred or so fighters, but they're all well-armed and armored, professional warriors. About half are infantry, armed with swords and spears, then a quarter or so are missile troops, longbowmen, crossbowmen and slingers. The rest are heavy cavalry, plus a few friendly locals who function as scouts mostly."
"Do they have any idea how big the continent is?" Rodgers asked, joining them along with Kate, Becks and Simone.
"Not a clue." Alexis shook her head. "I've tried to suggest to them how big it is, but as a wandering scholar from the Middle East, I should know very little about the geography of this continent."
Rodgers scratched his jaw. "The Normans are disciplined, well-armed and united. The locals don't have the type of discipline the Normans do, if they feel like going home, they go home. At least that was the way it was on my Earth. And they're divided up into too many tribes and they never united. Remember, the Apaches weren't defeated by the US Cavalry as the movies would have us believe, but by Apache Scouts. Apaches that fought against other Apaches. Cortez took Mexico by raising the Tlaxcalans and others against the Aztec overlords. Divide and conquer."
"One way or another we'll be out of here." Becks said softly.
As they talked, emissaries from Duchess Claudia went to the supporters of Michael to see what their wishes were and see if those wishes could be granted without compromising Duke Robert's powers.
At dinner time, the five sat together while people came and went in the Duchess' chambers.
"Here we are supporting a divine right monarch." Becks said. "I'm not big on this."
"We can't very well tell everyone to please set up a representative democracy and forget all about the nobility running things. We've tried that back on our own Earths. It didn't work out well."
Castle shrugged. "It worked with Germany after World War Two."
"They had had a form of democracy before both World Wars and they had the example of neighboring democracies to guide them. Plus they lost a war to democracies."
"Look!" Kate broke in. "We can't solve this world's problems. All we can do is try not to screw things up too badly here and get back with this Alexis so that President Bracken doesn't start overrunning other Earths."
Castle looked for a watch that wasn't there. "Force of habit. But it's late. We should get to bed."
The next day was better. The armorer had gone to see Lord Richard to ask him what he'd do about the scandalous state of the Ducal armory, asking a lot of technical questions that Lord Richard couldn't answer. He was followed by the head of the Ducal stud farms, with endless complaints about how badly the horse breeding was going. Later that afternoon, while Lord Richard was trying to understand the questions he'd already been asked, the head of the shipyard dropped by to ask Richard how he would handle a few simple problems at the shipyard. It took him nearly an hour to ask the questions.
That evening, they all met with Duchess Claudia. The Duchess looked out at her supporters. According to Alexis, there were some new people aligning themselves with the Duchess and Duke Robert the Younger. They were small landowners, wealthy merchants, and only a few of the nobility, but it was more than they had before.
The Duchess spoke. "I think we've done well, Richard." She nodded at Castle. "If this works as we hope it does, I'll have to consider knighting you. I won't knight you now, so that if someone else becomes the new Duke, you and yours can claim to have been just underlings and escape the noose, or however the new Duke would dispose of us.'
Castle felt both excited about being a knight and upset at the idea that these people could be facing death.
"I have talked to the people we sent to Lord Richard. While he seemed for the most part to be distracted and disinterested in their problems, Master Rastignac said that when he talked about the shipyards, Lord Richard seemed to understand that this was a problem that would have to be solved by the new Duke. Hopefully, he's thinking about the armories, the stud farms, taxes and all the rest. I hope he gets no sleep tonight worrying about it. I'm sure I'll get no sleep myself." The Duchess stood. "That said, my friends, we should all get some sleep if we can."
Castle and Kate and their friends were headed for their quarters when Alexis approached them.
"We need to talk."
Castle grimaced. "People say that when there's bad news."
"There's no more bad news than there was this morning. But that's still plenty. Have you any ideas about how to separate Count Michael from his followers?"
"What do they want that Michael can give them that the Duchess and Duke Robert, when he's older, can't?"
"They want a stable, strong government that will support their interests. These are the upper nobility and they're the big landowners. They have their own armed retinues. All together they can put perhaps three times as many warriors in the field as Lord Richard and the Duchess combined. And they have wealth to hire mercenaries or to tempt the followers we and Lord Richard have. And they don't believe a woman or a child can provide what they want."
"Haven't there been strong female leaders before?" Rodgers asked. "Look, they have no problems with Kate and Becks being guards for the Duchess. Hell, they expect women to be able to fight."
"Mostly it's because the old Duke was so damned good a leader. No one ever saw how much he used Duchess Claudia's abilities. He made it seem like he just effortlessly ran New Normandie all by himself. As far as everyone else is concerned, she's just his wife and nothing else."
"Crap." Castle muttered.
"Crap, indeed." Kate added.
On the other front, however, things were looking up. A delegation of blacksmiths and armorers had met with Lord Richard and pointed out that a new offensive against the locals would require that they produce more weapons and armor. That would require more coal and iron. While there were rumors of deposits of coal and iron in the interior, no one knew the truth of those rumors. However, importing iron and coal from Europe was expensive. They wanted to know what Lord Richard had in mind.
After he had promised to think about that, he met with a delegation of fishermen. A large army would require more food and salted fish would be an important part of their diet, they told Lord Richard. How were they to catch more fish? Where would they find more salt?
When a delegation of stonemasons and builders arrived to ask whether or not more fortifications would be needed, Lord Richard was suddenly unavailable.
Duchess Claudia brought her supporters together that evening after dinner. When she spoke, she had a smile on her face. "We seem to have attracted Lord Richard's attention to some of the more dreary aspects of being the Duke. His cousin, Martin of Belfort has asked for an audience. He's very close to Lord Richard and has a reputation of actually being able to think, unlike so many of Richard's followers. We shall receive him tomorrow."
The five of them retired to their quarters that night feeling that things might be getting better and that they could be going home soon.
Things did not look so bright the next day.
"What's going on?" Rodgers asked Castle as they stood guard at Duchess Claudia's quarters. The meeting with Martin of Belfort was taking place behind closed doors. However, Rick had gone to the medieval latrine, something that made him nauseous, but had talked to a servant who had brought food to the two delegations.
"The guy I talked to said there was a lot of shouting and yelling going on. Mostly from Martin's side. He doesn't like the deal being offered one bit."
"Do you think Lord Richard will declare himself the new Duke and rush us with his men? We're in a castle but he has a lot more men that we do?"
Rodgers shrugged. "You know as much as I do."
All through the day, rumors ran through the castle. None of them were good and some were much worse. At the end of a very long day, Duchess Claudia called her closest advisors, including Alexis and Rick and his companions in.
"I'm glad to announce that have reached an agreement with Lord Richard. He will come to the castle tomorrow to swear fealty to Duke Robert."
There was a buzz of conversation and finally Alexis spoke. "Duchess, we had heard that the negotiations were going badly. Very badly."
The Duchess smiled. "It's not unheard of for someone in a weak bargaining position to make extravagant demands and then allow themselves be talked into something more reasonable. Lord Richard's supporters have heard about the problems with weapons and armor, horses, food, and everything else and wanted to know how he intended to resolve these. Unfortunately he had no idea. We have a few friends among his supporters, who suggested that he ask us for support for his army in return for their fealty to our Duke. Eventually, he agreed."
The Duchess looked around with a gleam in her eye. "Also, word will get back to Michael that our negotiations have come to naught. He should get quite a surprise tomorrow."
"Speaking of surprises," Alexis spoke, "what do we do about Michael? Even with Lord Richard's supporters, Michael's forces outnumber us greatly. And Richard's troops signed up to fight for glory and land in the interior, not to fight in a civil war against other Normans."
"One problem at a time, child." The Duchess said quietly.
"Magna Carta!" Castle said sharply.
"A great charter?" The Duchess frowned. "What kind of a charter?"
"Something that happened in a country I was in a long time ago." Castle extemporized. "Um, the barons thought the local king couldn't protect them or might even be looking to take over their lands. So they forced the king to sign a document delineating which powers the king had and which the barons had. It's been a while since I was there, but I heard it all worked out."
Kate took up the tale. "Michael's supporters aren't that interested in having him become the Duke, they just want someone to guarantee their lands and privileges for them. We can do that as well." Kate noticed a frown on the Duchess' face. "Um, you can do that as well as Michael."
Duchess Claudia looked around at her closest advisors. Some sort of silent messages passed between them. She nodded. "We will discuss this. In the meantime, I want my guards to seal the palace off entirely. I do not want anyone to find out that Lord Richard has come to terms with us."
The night was busier for the guards than most nights. All sorts of people had to leave the palace. There seemed to be an abundance of sick relatives, romantic plans, cooks needing to go shopping, maids who needed a new scrub brush and even a sick parrot problem.
"I tell you, poor little Pierre has been coughing all night, the poor dear." A busty wench told Castle. She bent over a bit more to show her cleavage, but when she stood up, she found herself looking into a pair of hazel eyes.
"Go back to your quarters and stay there." Kate snarled. "Or I'll find a place for your parrot to roost that you won't like at all."
The woman went back to her quarters and Pierre, actually a crossbowman in the service of Count Michael, waited for her in vain.
Shortly after dawn, the guards were told to let anyone who wanted to leave the palace do so. The thought was that if all of Michael's supporters inside the castle left, they couldn't cause any problems when Lord Richard arrived.
About an hour after dawn, Lord Richard and his party arrived. They rode magnificent warhorses, who had strips of costly silk entwined in their manes and tails. There saddle blankets were heavily embroidered and the clothing of Lord Richard and the two dozen or so of his most important followers was magnificent.
Lord Richard definitely set the tone. He wore riding boots so highly polished that they seemed to glow, complete with golden spurs. Skin tight doeskin breeches were tucked into his boots and above that was a red silk shirt, tight across the body by very baggy in the sleeves. An unfastened vest, embroidered with battle scenes between a knight and some mythical beasts held a single red rose at the lapel. On his head was a wide brimmed hat with a large bird's feather that some artist had colored with all the colors of the rainbow. None of his followers were so magnificent, but all wore the most colorful and flamboyant clothes they had.
Lord Richard and his followers gathered at the far end of the throne room. At the other end, Duchess Claudia and young Duke Robert sat on their thrones two or three steps above the floor, with several of their advisers, including Alexis, at floor level. All of this was watched over by Alexis' Mongol guards, who were making a not very successful effort to look like they weren't expecting treachery from Lord Richard.
Lord Richard crossed the floor by himself, and knelt before Duke Robert one step below the new duke. Robert had removed a sword from behind his throne and held it with the point on the floor in front of Lord Richard. Castle noticed that in that position, the sword, with its cross guard resembled a Christian cross.
Richard put his hand on the hilt of the sword. Duke Robert put his hand atop Lord Richard's.
Richard spoke. "I swear to bear true fealty to you as my liege lord and to support you in every way, for as long as God gives me the strength to do so."
Then Duke Robert spoke. "I accept your fealty and I swear that I shall support you in every way, as long as God gives me the strength to do so."
Richard rose and walked back to the other side of the room. The next one of Lord Richard's supporters came forward and the ceremony was repeated until everyone had pledged fealty to Duke Robert.
Lord Richard went off with the Duchess and Duke to discuss the upcoming campaign. As the supporters of Lord Richard wandered away, Kate saw Alexis motioning to them.
"What?" Rick asked when he and his friends met with Alexis in a small alcove off of the throne room.
"News that Lord Richard has sworn fealty to young Robert has spread like wildfire. And, we've had two messages from nobles that had supported Michael asking to speak with the Duke and Duchess."
"So, maybe this can be resolved without a civil war?" Simone asked.
Alexis shrugged. "I hope so."
The next three days they were kept busy guarding the negotiations between Duke Robert, the Duchess and several prominent noblemen. No one outside of the negotiators themselves knew they were going, but the mere fact they were talking was a good sign.
"Duchess Claudia is talking to each noble separately." Alexis explained several days later. "That way each noble can wonder and worry that when this great charter is signed, what they'll lose if they don't get in on the ground floor so to speak."
In the end, four nobles agreed to pledge fealty to Duke Robert in exchange for the great charter, in effect a written guarantee that their rights and privileges would be respected. The news that four powerful lords would support Duke Robert began a hemorrhage of support from Michael.
Alexis explained things to them at dinner one night. "Michael does have a hard core of supporters, but if he tries to declare himself Duke he won't have enough fighting men to succeed. The Duke's own troops would be enough to defeat Michael."
Duchess Claudia decided to have the four nobles declare their fealty to Duke Robert as soon as possible, feeling that would put additional pressure on those nobles who still hung back, or who wanted too much from the Duke.
On the day the oath was to be sworn, the four nobles gathered in the throne room across from Duke Robert and Duchess Claudia. They were not dressed in their finest clothes as Richard and his followers had been, apparently feeling that they did not need to impress anyone.
Rick and Kate were on guard on a stair landing looking down into a hallway a short flight of stairs from the landing. As they stood there a column of priests approached, led by a cardinal dressed in red and followed by rank after rank of black robed priests.
As the cardinal passed, Kate frowned. "Castle, those men are clinking."
"Clinking." Rick listened. "Like they're…"
"Wearing armor under their robes." Kate finished.
"Guards!" They both screamed. "Those aren't priests!"
The fake priests threw off their robes. Most ran for the throne room. Three went up the stairs toward Rick and Kate. Rick was to Kate's right. She had a shield that would cover the left side of her body. Castle moved his shield to cover her right side.
"Castle! Dammit!" Kate screamed at him, but the three men were on them.
Rick soon found that dueling with light weight epees wasn't the same as being in a real sword fight. The first man to him slammed his shield into Castle's shield, knocking him back. Castle shoved with his shield, but the other man had braced himself and didn't move. He swung his sword down and chopped a piece out of Castle's shield, the force of the blow shoving Rick down. The man rained blows down on Castle's shield, knocking parts off of it. Suddenly Castle saw his chance. He swung his sword at the other man's knee, below his chain mail. He heard the man curse and so he swung again. This time the man hopped a few steps downward and grabbed his bleeding knee.
Castle looked up to see that Kate was holding her own against her opponent. He stood up to help her when the third man attacked him. Instead of a sword, this one had a two handed axe. One blow sent Castle back to his knees. The second blow left him with half a shield and the third with no shield at all. His opponent raised his axe above his head for a killing blow only to have Kate's sword slash him across the cheek, staggering him for a moment. Castle stabbed at him, but his sword skittered off the man's chain mail. Castle saw he would get no more help from Kate. Saving him had allowed her opponent to grab her sword arm. They were in a wrestling match for the sword that Kate would soon lose. Castle tried to pull his sword back to stab again, but he could see it was too late. He watched as an arrow flashed through the man's throat and sailed over his head. When the man fell, Castle could see one of Alexis' Mongol guards smiling up at him, then running off. He turned to Kate's assailant and drove the tip of his sword into the man's neck between his chain mail coat and his helmet. The man turned to Castle with a most surprised look on his face and then collapsed.
"Are you okay?" Kate screamed, putting her arms around him.
"I'm not sure. Do I have any holes in me?"
Kate smiled at him. "No. You're good."
"You're remarkable." He replied.
He stood there shakily for a moment until the sounds of battle from the throne room reminded them of what they had to do."
"Once more unto the breach, dear wife." Castle misquoted.
"I'm never letting you watch Henry V again."
As they trotted down the hall to the throne room, Kate spoke. "Stay behind me. You don't have a shield."
"Like hell."
They were still arguing when they reached the throne room. They stopped to get their bearings, looking at the swirling fight going on. The Mongol's with their recurved bows and the Duke's crossbowmen had taken up positions on the balconies above them and were shooting down into the mass of men, unerringly picking of Michael's men. Castle saw one of the Duke's guards fall with a crossbow bolt in his back and decided their aim was sub-unerring.
"Castle!" Kate screamed, pointing across the room. Castle saw a flash of red and realized that Alexis, carrying the young Duke was heading straight for them. One of Michael's men was in hot pursuit of her, sword in hand.
Castle almost made it to her before the sword cut into Alexis' back. She screamed and fell forward. As her assailant raised his sword to strike a killing blow, Castle chopped at his neck. Blood sprayed on Castle, Alexis and the young Duke. Castle showed the man's body away and knelt by Alexis. Blood was pouring from her back.
"Metford! Get us all the hell out of here now!" Castle screamed.
A few seconds passed and then, to everyone's amazement, there was a flash of blue light and six people vanished.
Back on the Moon, Castle was pushing as hard as he could on Alexis' back to staunch the flow of blood. "It's her, dammit! It's the Alexis you wanted. Save her! Save her!"
He was moved out of the way by paramedics and a doctor. Kate dragged him further away.
"Will she be okay?" He called, beginning to cry. The medics were too busy saving her to answer. Castle and his friends watched as Alexis was loaded onto a gurney and quickly wheeled away.
His friends took Castle back to their quarters where they sat quietly for several hours until Metford called them to his office.
"Alexis suffered some internal injuries and has lost a lot of blood, but she should be okay in a few days. Lucky for her our medical science is in advance of everyone else's." Metford smiled. "Speaking of our medical science, we can begin the repair of Ms. Beckett's eye and face and we can begin repairing Mr. Rodger's PTSD."
"How long is that going to take?" Rodgers asked. "What do you do? Group therapy? One on one? Meds?"
Metford shrugged. "I'm not an expert, but we've found that many psychological problems are due to almost imperceptible chemical imbalances in the brain. That and some medications can reduce your nightmares, flashbacks, exaggerated startle reaction, mood swings and other symptoms down to little or nothing. Would you two care to start this evening after dinner?"
Both Becks and Rodgers smiled, then turned to each other.
"When you're all done here, we'd like you to take this Alexis back to her father. We think we have protocols in place now to keep President Bracken's men from being able to access her Earth."
"We're really going to go home?" Castle asked.
Metford nodded with a smile.
Castle turned to Kate and kissed her. "Just our luck that the last kidnapped Alexis we found was the one we wanted."
"Oh, there's still another Alexis out there." Metford said.